French American-born Alexei Riboud is originally a graphic designer/art director educated at SVA (School of Visual Arts, New York) who worked 15 years at agencies in New York, Johannesburg and Paris before turning to photography.
In most aspects of my work lies the need to be confronted by the territoriality of margins or peripheries. Whether it is within the informal settlements of Soweto (South Africa), the Suburbia of Paris, or the vast American West, I perceive these grey areas as spaces with multiple superimposed limits or layers in constant transition. I believe that the margins or peripheries reveal the evolution and dynamics of a system or at least contributes to its mutation. Mostly seen as counter-space or a geography in negative (anti-geography), I tend to bring these marginal states at the center of things therefore turning the negative into a positive, exploring its intrinsic paradox. In fact,I am attached to express a reflection on the questioning these gray or intermediate spaces reveal in building themselves into territories. My approach has been refined over many years of shooting in diverse locations, including Havana, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Mumbai, Shanghai, Chicago and of course Paris — usually with a focus on the peripheral spaces within or next to large cities. My photography becomes a field of experimentation to conquer through fragments of the landscapes in an effort to capture innate structures.
personal exhibitions
Stone town, Zanzibar, Maison de l’Afrique, Paris, 2011
Tokyo walk, Galerie ‘Think and More’, Paris, 2011
Durban Transit, Galerie Pascaline Mulliez, Paris, 2009
Soweto, Femmes sans terre, Galerie Fait&Cause, Paris, 2007
From New York to Soweto, Institut Français d’Afrique du Sud, Johannesburg, 1998
collective exhibitions
Havana, Maison des Amériques Latines, Paris, 2014
Artists for life, Serris, 2010
Afrique du Sud, Médiatèque de Nancy, 2010
L’Inde en diptyque, Maison des Indes, Paris, 2003